A Corny Tale

In the mid ‘90s, two young men, Maahes Jones and Kentough Baryl, met in Amsterdam and befriended each other. These guys, though young and only just in their high school years, had the – some would argue – misfortune of being as woke the world has forced people to be these days. Back then however there was still little to no divide in the minds of many between how they thought the world should be and how it actually was. Jones and Baryl realized that the usual debates, or even the more radical measures that some in their milieu occasionally restored to, fell on deaf ears and that in order for the message to come across it had to be more digestible. Jones was, even at that young, already working as a freelance illustrator while Baryl came from a showbiz family. For them to resort to some art form or another to convey that message was only natural. They also figured that the best way portray the bizarre antics of their fellow humans was through the eyes of beings that were not human themselves. Jones and Baryl came up with Shilrah and Kentough respectively, two characters based on themselves but designed to be alien. Jones’ work meant that the easiest way to share these stories was through visual storytelling and that’s when the idea of making a comic book was coined.

As Jones and Baryl gradually fleshed out their characters and the world they lived in, two titles began to take shape. One was The Claw, which recounted the story of an outlandish feline pit fighter named Shilrah. The other was The Manta in which Baryl’s character of the same, in an ironic twist, travels to Earth to seek a cure for the greed-induced epidemic that plagued his people. Both characters would witness the absurdity that is humanity, recount it and, in proper extended universe tradition, meet and cross over from one title to another.

It wouldn’t take long before people realized that these guys were pretty committed to this project and in the years leading up to the turn of the millennium things went into overdrive. That first manifested itself in the form of manpower. Fellow students, friends and colleagues who were also in creative industries, or at least aspiring to be, caught wind of the project and jumped on board, each bringing their own ideas to the table. To avoid any thematic convolution, it was then it was decided to compile all of these ideas, characters and narratives into one single title. Eclipse (then “Eclypz”) was born. Soon, third parties started getting involved and by the turn of the millennium the group, then called Cri-Fi Comics, had already scored a publisher, a distributor and numerous consultants from the branches of graphic design and bande dessinée. Then the whole thing came crumbling down.

During those days, and keep in mind – this is well before the age of the MCU – the American comic book industry was hurting. That also had an impact on those who imported comics or were otherwise involved with it. This resulted in a total collapse of the industry, at least outside it’s major marketplaces; comic book stores closed, publishers stopped importing and translating comics, stores stopped selling them and underground artists stopped making them. Since the project was based in Amsterdam, all the parties involved with the project were also profoundly impacted. Both the distributor and the publisher went belly up and left to fend for themselves the team gradually disbanded as the artists went off to engage in other, more lucrative artistic endeavors.

While the comic struggled on a practical level, the conversation nonetheless always continued. With no real options in terms of production, the team decided to instead perfect the thematics in order to deliver the best possible story once the opportunity to produce it arose. Once again, outside consultants got involved, this time to flesh out the story. As a result, the team took the Ridley Scott approach. All of the thematic elements they had thus far created were scrutinized in order to provide an sound explanation to all of them. They turned to mythologies for answers.

By the time the team had connected all the dots they had, albeit inadvertently, created a second timeline in which the origins of the original thematics were rooted. Eclipse could now be broken down into two pivotal eras. One was what they referred to as the Legends Era, in which is the backdrop to all of the original themes, including the stories of Kentough and Shilrah. The other was the Genesis Era which relied more on the mythologies as source material and was, for the most part, a web of existing folklore from all over the world. It had occurred to the Genesis team that the mythologies of the world could be considered to be pieces of one universal mythology and they ran with it. But this universal mythology slowly began evolving into what would be considered today as a contemporary paradigm, which is essentially why Jones and Baryl decided to do the comic in the first place all those years back. Intrigued by that the team, at that moment, definitively decided to publish that comic autonomously.

With newfound resolve the team moved to tackle making the comic but while Genesis had provided the extended universe of Eclipse with the substance it needed, it would go on to present the team with a whole new conundrum they would spend nearly a decade solving; where to start? On the one hand there were those that swore by starting at the beginning and introducing the audience to Eclipse by providing the narrative in chronological order. On the other hand there were those that strongly believed in starting in medias res and that Genesis gave too much of what made Legends compelling away off the bat. This resulted in years upon years of discussions that never seemed to get resolved. Over the years several would-be Eclipse books ended up getting shelved until, once again, life happened and the pages of the pages of the book ended up in attic collecting dust.

For years there was nothing but tumbleweed in the comics department. Both Jones and Adelaar, who had helmed comics, had moved on to some other projects. Focus was shifted to comic strips and then urban art and it was then the collective began to shed the Cri-Fi. It was also during those same years Jones met Devion Dark, with whom he had joined forces to write a screenplay for a motion picture thus ushering in the collective’s era of engaging in other media art projects. The media art branch that would ultimately become Purple Corn while the urban art branch evolved into RAF Amsterdam. It was in that screenplay that Jones finally found the solution to the comic’s problem. The screenplay, a contemporary fantasy-horror story called Mean Streak, recounted the life of a girl that discovers that there is much more to the world than meets the eye. Jones figured that if that world and the world in which Eclipse plays out were one and the same, that that would solve the introduction issues. Furthermore, this journey of discovery also fell in line beautifully with the contemporary paradigms that Jones and Baryl sought to convey in the first place. Jones and Dark immediately went to work on adapting Mean Streak to fit the extended universe. The writers finally had something to work with!

It wasn’t until late ’14 that the artists were given the go-ahead to make the comic. Before long, a first draft was finished. However, up until that point the whole thing had been a glorified hobby whereas now numerous parties were having serious conversations about a bona fide commercial product. That led to the revamp of the up-until-then Purple Corn art collective into Purple Corn Studios as well as another round of scrutinizing the comic. It’s been a long and difficult journey, but you know what they say; experience is one thing you can’t get for nothing!

What's In A Name

Occasionally people will ask us “why the name”? Our answer? Because just like with purple corn you didn’t think such a thing was possible. That such a thing existed. But now that you discovered it does, turns out it’s pretty sweet and just what the doctor ordered!

What do you mean “there no such thing as purple corn”? Yes there is! It can be found predominantly in Peru and it’s used to make beverages and deserts, as well as health supplements. The proof is in the pudding - literally!